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Okowa Tasks FG On Rising Cost Of Cooking Gas

Published

4 years ago

November 22, 2021

Editor

File copy: Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa

Delta State governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, has called on the Federal Government and relevant policy makers to initiate steps towards reducing the rising cost of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the country.

The governor made the call at a two-day LPG sensitisation and awareness campaign organised by the National LPG Expansion Implementation Plan, Office of the Vice President in conjunction with the State Government on Monday in Asaba.

He said that the theme of the campaign “Stimulating Delta State Socioeconomic Growth Through LPG Adoption And Expansion” was apt as the world moved towards greener sources of energy.

This, according to him, is because of the adverse effects of fossil fuel on the environment.

Okowa, represented by his Chief Economic Adviser, Dr Kingsley Emu, said stakeholders must work to reduce the rising cost of LPG if the objective of the National LPG Expansion plan was to be realised.

He thanked the Office of the Vice President for choosing Delta as one of the pilot states for the public enlightenment campaign.

“Just recently, world leaders gathered in Glasgow, Ireland, in a Summit (COP-26) to discuss the adverse effects of climate change occasioned by the use of fossil fuels and the need to move towards cleaner energy.

“This makes the adoption of LPG as a transition fuel to greener sources exigent, and Delta State is keen to play a vital role in this process and will give this awareness programme maximum support,” he said.

Okowa said that Delta was home to 40 per cent of the nation’s natural gas endowments, hence a large number of oil and gas companies operate in the state.

He said that there were prospects for the establishment of gas processing plants and gas-related industries in the state.

This, the governor said, had implications for employment generation, inclusive economic growth and sustainable development.

“However, as we adopt LPG as the fuel to drive the socio-economic activities of the economy, we must acknowledge a big challenge currently confronting the populace, the issue of high price of LPG in the market.

“At the rate the price is skyrocketing, LPG is gradually getting out of the reach of the middle class and common man.

“The price increase has been linked to several factors including the VAT re-introduction, devaluation of the naira and large importation of LPG vis-a-vis low production locally.

“It is imperative that policy makers find a way to mitigate this upward trend in the price of LPG to give succour to our people, and if the goal of the LPG expansion plan is to be realised,” he said.

Okowa was unhappy with the continuous flaring of gas by most oil and gas companies and urged them to expand their production facility to include the capacity to convert gas to LPG for use.

He said that this was because of the untapped potential in the LPG market.

The governor called on investors to come into the oil and gas sector and improve the availability of LPG in the market.

He that his administration had carried out significant reforms to create investor-friendly climate in the state, including tax harmonisation, easy access to land and dispute resolution mechanisms to handle conflicts when they arise.

“As we embrace the use of LPG in every sector of our economy as the source of energy, safety concerns become paramount.

“We cannot forget in a hurry the gas explosion incident at Agbor in January this year, which, sadly, claimed many lives.

“As a government, we have put mechanisms in place to avert similar occurrences and that includes the setting up of a committee to advise the government on guidelines for the establishment of gas plants in the state,” the governor said.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on LPG, Mr Dayo Adesina, said Delta State was strategic to the National LPG Expansion plan in view of its contributions to oil and gas development in the country.

He said the Federal Government would procure 10 million gas cylinders and give to marketers for onward distribution to end users which would be exchanged from various homes.

Adesina said there was no reason why anyone should use firewood, kerosene and charcoal for cooking especially when the country was blessed with abundance of gas.

He commended Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa for setting up four training centres for manufacturing of low emission stove in the state.

Earlier in a welcome address, the State Commissioner for Oil and Gas, Prince Emmanuel Amgbaduba, said the objective of the sensitisation was to display the economic and sustainability plan for adopting LPG for domestic use, power generation, agriculture and transportation amongst others.

He said that the adoption of LPG for clean cooking would mitigate against deforestation, reduce depletion of the ozone layer and boost revenue generation in the state.

The commissioner commended Okowa for approving an Annual Sensitisation Campaign on Safety for LPG Retailers in the State, with the maiden edition held in 2020.

“By this new vista, oil companies are encouraged to diversify by transforming waste to wealth in place of flaring gas.

“As the State gets set to embrace the new frontiers that this programme intends to unveil, government is not unmindful of the associated safety hazards especially when not handled appropriately.

“With the establishment of Department of Monitoring and Compliance in the ministry, all hands must be on deck to institute best global practices at keeping every resident of the State safe as we reiterate our resolve to adopt LPG as a transition fuel in the journey towards greener energy,” Amgbaduba said.

On his part, Chairman, Isoko South Local Government Council, Mr Victor Asasa, called for the establishment of gas turbine power plant in Irri to be powered from the gas being flared in the area.

The event featured paper presentations from stakeholders in the oil and gas sector as well as exhibition of locally produced low emission stoves.

(NAN/VANGUARD)

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Hiroshima Marks 80 Years As US-Russia Nuclear Tensions Rise

Published

9 hours ago

August 7, 2025

Editor

Japan marked 80 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday with a ceremony reminding the world of the horrors unleashed, as sabre-rattling between the United States and Russia keeps the nuclear “Doomsday Clock” close to midnight.

A silent prayer was held at 8:15 am (2315 GMT), the moment when US aircraft Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” over the western Japanese city on August 6, 1945.

On a sweltering morning, hundreds of black-clad officials, students and survivors laid flowers at the memorial cenotaph, with the ruins of a domed building in the background, a stark reminder of the horrors that unfolded.

In a speech, Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui warned of “an accelerating trend toward military buildup around the world”, against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East.

“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it was Japan’s mission “to take the lead… toward a world without nuclear weapons”.

The final death toll of the Hiroshima attack would hit around 140,000 people, killed not just by the colossal blast and the ball of fire, but also later by the radiation.

Three days after “Little Boy”, on August 9, another atomic bomb killed 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Imperial Japan surrendered on August 15, bringing an end to World War II.

Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million but the attacks live on in the memories of many.

On the eve of the ceremony, people began lining up to pay their respects to the victims in front of the cenotaph.

Before dawn on Wednesday, families who lost loved ones in the attack also came to pray.

Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who arrived in a wheelchair with her grandson, told reporters that her parents and grandparents were bomb victims.

“My grandfather died soon after the bombing, while my father and mother both died after developing cancer. My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn’t see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war.

“People are still suffering,” she added.

Wednesday’s ceremony was set to include a record of around 120 countries and regions including, for the first time, Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives.

The United States — which has never formally apologised for the bombings — was represented by its ambassador to Japan. Russia and China were absent.

Nihon Hidankyo, the grassroots organisation that last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, is representing the dwindling number of survivors, known as hibakusha.

As of March, there were 99,130 hibakusha, according to the Japanese health ministry, with the average age of 86.

“I want foreign envoys to visit the peace memorial museum and understand what happened,” the group’s co-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki told local media ahead of the commemorations.

Pope Leo XIV said in a statement that “in our time of mounting global tensions and conflicts”, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained “living reminders of the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons”.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the very weapons that brought such devastation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are once again being treated as tools of coercion”.

– Younger generation –
The attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used in wartime.

Kunihiko Sakuma, 80, who survived the blasts as a baby, told AFP he was hopeful that there could eventually be a nuclear-free world.

“The younger generation is working hard for that end,” he said ahead of the ceremony.

But in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” shifted to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest in its 78-year history.

The clock symbolising humanity’s distance from destruction was last moved to 90 seconds to midnight over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russia and the United States account for around 90 percent of the world’s over 12,000 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

SIPRI warned in June that “a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened,” with nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states modernising their arsenals.

Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump said that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines following an online spat with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

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Rare 1937 ‘Hobbit’ Discovered In House Clearance Sells For $57,000

Published

10 hours ago

August 7, 2025

Editor

A rare first-edition copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” sold for 43,000 pounds ($57,000) at auction on Wednesday, after it was found during a house clearance in South-West England.

Purchased by a private collector in the United Kingdom, the book is one of 1,500 original copies of the British author’s seminal fantasy novel that were published in 1937.

Of those, only “a few hundred are believed to still remain”, according to the auction house Auctioneum, which discovered the book on a bookcase at a home in Bristol.

Bidders from around the world drove the price up by more than four times what the auction house expected for the manuscript.

“It’s a wonderful result for a very special book,” said Auctioneum rare books specialist Caitlin Riley.

“The surviving books from the initial print run are now considered some of the most sought-after books in modern literature,” Auctioneum said in a statement.

Auctioneum unearthed the book during a routine house clearance after its owner passed away.

“Nobody knew it was there,” Riley said. “It was just a run-of-the-mill bookcase.”

“It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition,” she said.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she added, calling it an “unimaginably rare find”.

The copy is bound in light green cloth and features rare black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien, who created his beloved Middle-earth universe while he was a professor at the University of Oxford.

The book was passed down in the family library of Hubert Priestley, a botanist connected to the university.

“It is likely that both men knew each other,” according to Auctioneum, which said Priestley and Tolkien shared mutual correspondence with author C.S. Lewis, who was also at Oxford.

“The Hobbit”, which was followed by the epic series “The Lord of the Rings”, has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

The sagas were turned into a hit movie franchise in the 2000s.

A first edition of “The Hobbit” with a handwritten note in Elvish by the author sold for £137,000 at Sotheby’s in June 2015.

AFP

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Relief For Applicants As Germany Eases Visa Process, Opens Visa Centres In Nigeria, Others

Published

11 hours ago

August 6, 2025

Editor

Germany has expanded its Schengen visa services by launching four new application centres in Africa and the Middle East, including two in Nigeria.

The centres, located in Abuja, Lagos (Nigeria), Yaoundé (Cameroon), and Nicosia (Cyprus), are part of a new seven-year partnership between Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and VFS Global, the international visa processing firm.

Until now, Nigerians applying for German Schengen visas had to go through the German Embassy in Abuja or the Consulate General in Lagos, where limited capacity and high demand often caused delays and long appointment wait times.

The new visa centres are expected to significantly ease the process, cut down on waiting periods, and improve overall access for applicants.

Germany continues to be a major destination for Africans and Middle Easterners pursuing education, healthcare, tourism, and job opportunities.

Meanwhile, VFS Global has issued a warning to the public about fake websites and individuals offering fraudulent visa appointments for a fee.

Recent figures indicate Nigeria had a 45.9% Schengen visa rejection rate in 2024—the third-highest globally after Bangladesh.